Israel admits ‘complete failure’ to prevent Hamas October 7 operation

The Israeli military admitted that it had “completely failed” to prevent Hamas’s October 7 retaliatory operation and underestimated the Palestinian resistance group’s capabilities for years.

The summary of an Israeli military investigation, published on Thursday, said the perception that Hamas was not interested in a full-scale conflict and that Israel would have ample warning in case of an attack went unchallenged for years.

It resulted in a lack of preparedness and ability to respond to an attack, it said.

“October 7 was a complete failure, the [military] failed in fulfilling its mission to protect Israeli civilians,” a senior Israeli military official told reporters following the publication of the investigation.

“Too many civilians died that day asking themselves in their hearts or out loud, where was the [military]?” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The probe also found that Israel had focused its intelligence and military efforts on other fronts, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and relied too heavily “on intelligence, barriers, and defensive measures alone,” and was thus caught by surprise.

Citing Israeli security sources, the investigation said only 767 Israeli soldiers had been stationed along the separating fence in the Gaza Strip on October 7, and around 5,000 fighters of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, entered the occupied territories by land, air, and sea in different waves of the attack.

The command-and-control of the so-called Gaza Division of Israel’s Southern Command collapsed within hours of the attack, and top Israeli officers, including the division’s Southern Brigade commander Asaf Hamami and many company and platoon commanders, were killed by the Palestinian resistance fighters.

The investigation also found that the Israeli military’s regional unit, tasked with guarding the boundary of the Gaza Strip, was overpowered in the first hours of the attack as it had “missed obvious signs of the impending attack and preparations around it.”

According to the reports, the Israeli military’s Gaza Division, which is stationed along the 59km barrier with Gaza, was defeated for around 10 hours.

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The investigation found that the ground attack had three main influxes of Hamas fighters, while the infiltration via sea using seven speedboats and air using paragliders was carried out by just 38 and eight Palestinian fighters, respectively.

The Israeli military’s internal investigations also said the regime had “underestimated” the Palestinian resistance group’s military capabilities, which led to the al-Qassam Brigades’ control over Israeli communities near the besieged enclave and alongside the regime’s military posts.

In late April 2024, Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a report, after collecting dozens of testimonies, that the Hamas-led operation on the occupied territories showcased the failure of Israeli security and assistance to the settlers.

“All of Israel’s intelligence and operational systems collapsed,” the report said. “All of its political conceptions were proven false. In the space of 24 hours, Israelis lost faith” that the Tel Aviv regime “could protect them.”

Israel launched its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led resistance groups carried out the historic al-Aqsa Flood operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of freeing captives and eliminating Hamas despite killing at least 48,365 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza.

Israel accepted Hamas’s longstanding negotiation terms under a Gaza ceasefire, which began on January 19.

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